


These Violent Delights Have Pretty Chill Ends

by FearNoEvil



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Awesome Cosette, Comedy, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Family, Fix-It, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, OOC for laughs, References to Shakespeare, Silly, Sort Of, and I mean everyone, in the humor sense and the Shakespearean sense, very silly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27815323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FearNoEvil/pseuds/FearNoEvil
Summary: "Papa," said Cosette one day, after being denied access to M. Gillenormand's house yet again. "Do you remember when I was little, and you scaled the wall of the Petit-Picpus Convent to get us to safety?""Of course, my child," replied Jean Valjean. "Why do you ask?"Cosette held up a rope. "Could you teach me?"-The one where Cosette has learned a thing or two from her dear papa, Marius puts his lawyer’s license to good use, and his friends keep the wedding party entertained with orations and anecdotes while the bride and groom receive a number of very unexpected guests.
Relationships: Cosette Fauchelevent & Marius Pontmercy & Jean Valjean, Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Courfeyrac & Marius Pontmercy, Les Amis de l'ABC Friendship, Marius Pontmercy & Les Amis de l'ABC
Comments: 27
Kudos: 18





	1. The Lark Knight Rises

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Les Miserables is so beautifully tragic! Such rich and nuanced characters with such tragic ends! What a heartbreaking portrayal of human suffering! There is rich and fertile soil for a thousand angles of angst!
> 
> My brain: But what if you wrote totally ridiculous Les Mis comedies instead??
> 
> Me: Well, that's good, too! Les Mis fans, by their definition, could all do with a laugh!
> 
> I finally finished the Brick last night, and I NEEDED this to cope (though I'd been working on it already.) This is, as I have repeatedly stated, very silly. But I'm going to try not to apologize for everything I do, and sincerely hope you can enjoy it for what it is! XD

"Moreover, Cosette was not very timid by nature. There flowed in her veins some of the blood of the bohemian and the adventuress who runs barefoot. It will be remembered that she was more of a lark than a dove. There was a foundation of wildness and bravery in her."

"With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls,

For stony limits cannot hold love out." (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)

* * *

Cosette Fauchelevent was, at this epoch, a young lady of considerable beauty, who dressed in the most elegant mode of fashion, carried a parasol, gave to the poor, adored her father, spoke in a soft, sweet voice, and held in her fair breast that which lent the rest of her charming person a certain august grandeur and sublimity: she was in love.

Love had rendered her lover by terms weak and strong, dreamy and determined, sublime and ridiculous. Love had played out all its shades of agony and ecstasy, desire and despair, lethargy and restlessness, contentment and desperation, silence and eloquence, and even a sort of madness upon the tumultuous soul of Marius Pontmercy, and the result was that he now lay gravely wounded in his grandfather’s attic from a gunshot he’d received in a failed revolution.

Love played a simpler tune for Cosette. It rendered her brave almost to effrontery. Her heart was bounteous and pure; her love and kindness had no end. But she had very nearly reached the end of her patience.

Every day since the horrible night after the barricade, when her father had returned (smelling of the sewer) and assured her that Marius was safe and recovering from his wounds, she had tried to go and see him at the enormous apartment owned by his grandfather, M. Gillenormand. And every day, she was coldly turned away at the door.

Now Cosette did not like to interfere with a family’s love. She knew from her own past how precious and fleeting such things could be. But she wanted to see Marius; she, with whom Marius had exchanged vows, had exchanged their very hearts, had a _right_ to him. In their hearts they were already wedded, knit together – hers were the rights of a wife, that only lacked the trifling formality of being on paper. And she knew without a flicker of doubt that Marius, whatever his mental faculty at the moment, would want to see her, too, as soon as he was able. And he had _that_ right. And if these rights were being denied, why then the simple fact of the matter was that Marius was a prisoner in that cold, grand attic.

"Papa," said Cosette one day, after being denied access to M. Gillenormand's house yet again. "Do you remember when I was little, and you scaled the wall of the Petit-Picpus Convent to get us to safety?"

"Of course, my child," replied Jean Valjean. "Why do you ask?"

Cosette held up a rope. "Could you teach me?"

Jean Valjean could easily guess why Cosette desired this knowledge. He hesitated very briefly; the shady skills he had acquired in his secret, sordid past clashed discordantly with the sweet, innocent and respectable life he had always wished to give Cosette; they were a part of him that was not for her to know. And yet, she was looking at him so beseechingly, her eyes alight with hope and love.

“And after all,” Jean Valjean reasoned to himself, “I didn’t drag that little noodle halfway across Paris through the sewer just for him to be denied to her now!”

Aloud he simply said again, “Of, course, my child.”

Cosette listened well to these lessons and, heartened by her father’s easy acquiescence and his earlier reassurance about Marius’s fate, at length made bold to confess her plan. Jean Valjean only nodded gravely.

“You don’t think it’s mad?” Cosette wondered.

“My dear child,” laughed Jean Valjean, “did I ever tell you how I got _out_ of the convent?”

Cosette and her father planned this caper with great precision, and Providence smiled upon their plans by rendering the night of action a dry one. Rain might have made the wall too slick for Cosette’s shoes to grip; but God willed that their endeavor should go on without this obstacle, and dispersed the gloomy clouds from the skies of Paris, leaving the respectable wall of that grand bourgeois house undefended from benevolent kidnappers.

Cosette had with great satisfaction affixed a sharp grappling hook to the end of her rope, which she had found in the street, in the wreckage of one of the ruined barricades. That derelict carcass of the furious chimera, composed of paving-stones and upturned carts and the righteous indignation of a people, that smoldering, festering blight of doomed hope – still its eye glinted with defiance of the state as it rendered its last service to lawless youth acting against the bourgeois and upon a great wealth of love. For the past week, Cosette had been practicing her throw on the branch of a high tree in her back garden, which acted as a decoy for the railing on Marius’s balcony. She cheered aloud when she finally got the hook to spin around itself and hold fast to the branch.

Jean Valjean, meanwhile, had been engaged in casing the joint of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire to master the layout and inner workings of the building and better penetrate its outer defenses. It was a new sort of challenge, as he had never broken into a significantly rich person’s house before (as there was little sense in leaving money on such a person’s table) and this time, their object was definitively to take a not to give.

“We are not thieves, Papa,” Cosette assured him, as she tied a black cloth around her face in preparation for the night’s great heist. “His grandfather does not _own_ him, surely! We are only rescuing a man unjustly imprisoned!”

Jean Valjean certainly could not argue with that.

When the pair of them reached the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, they scanned quickly for passersby. The hour was late for the respectable bourgeois, and none were stirring but occasional boisterous gamins. The street lamp closest to the house-front was broken and thus unlit (which reminded Valjean forcefully of the boy he’d met on the night of the barricade, bearing Marius’s letter) and, this too, was a sign of Providence – as if to cloak their deeds in the obscurity of darkness.

Jean Valjean took his place in the shadows outside the gate; he was the lookout and the getaway. The actual rescue was all up to Cosette.

The reader will remember that Marius had had an easier job than Romeo in going to meet his beloved in her garden; he had never been obliged to scale a wall, but only to pass through a gate. But the gate here, unlike on the house of the Rue Plumet, had no faulty or removable rails. Thus Cosette, unable to squeeze herself between two bars, was obliged to climb over it. Cosette gloried in her defiance of the unfriendly gate and the established conventions of her love. As she hoisted herself over the gate and landed deftly and quietly upon the grassy lawn of the grand bourgeois, she cast a glance skyward and whispered under her breath, “I defy you, stars!”

She then shot her father a radiant smile and a thumbs-up while he waited, and then turned to approach the building itself. Her father had reported that Marius’s room with its wide balcony was on the second floor; the rail of the balcony gleamed in the moonlight, and was higher than the branch of her tree. But now was the moment of truth; if she missed her throw, the grappling hook might clang harshly against the metal, might alert the other inhabitants of this attempted breech.

Cosette threw the rope.

It softly encountered the rail of the balcony; the end spun itself around and around and then hooked; when Cosette pulled, it held fast. She began to climb.

As she ascended to the balcony of her imprisoned love, Cosette felt she was in her element. Never before – except when she took Jean Valjean’s hand for the first time, except when she sat in her garden beside Marius – had she felt so sure and so confident of what she was doing, of her path, of a sky-lifting, star-defying sense of _freedom_. The dignity of the human soul, of choices made from love – the Thénardiers could not take it, a convent could not take it, a barricade could not take it, all of society could not take it from her! She claimed it for herself.

She reached the balcony, hoisting her legs over the railing, and rushed to the sheer glass door that was now all that separated her from Marius. She peeked through to see the bedroom where her love was installed; he was sprawled across a large sofa, propped with pillows; beside him was a table laid out with bandages and surgical instruments. His face was bandaged, his arm in a sling, his legs elevated. His eyes were squeezed shut, his lips pressed together in an a taut line – but he was not asleep. As Cosette’s shadow fell over him, he looked over toward her as she frantically waved. His jaw dropped.

The door was not locked, and in a matter of seconds, Cosette had silently opened it and closed the distance between them. They were locked in each other’s arms. Cosette was very careful not to unsettle his wound. They both wept in joy and relief, as quietly as they could.

“Cosette,” Marius whispered raggedly. “How –?”

Cosette gave an impish smile. “With ‘love’s light wings,’ my dearest! But we must be quick and silent; Papa is waiting outside!”

“We must be –?” Marius stared in bewilderment, and could not comprehend.

“Oh, yes,” Cosette remembered. She straightened up, struck a heroic stance, and said, as loudly as she dared, “I’m here to rescue you!”

Marius stared. He believed he had experienced, in the last few years – in the last few _months_ especially – every conceivable shock of emotion that his tumultuous family, his even more tumultuous friends, the expanding of his mind, the witnessing of true suffering, the agonies of love, and the blood-soaked brutality and despair of the revolution which had swallowed up all his friends had carried with them. But nothing had prepared him for this.

He was mute and paralyzed with shock, which was helpful as Cosette gently shifted him into position to be carried off. She held him, unknowingly, the same way her father had carried him through those endless subterranean labyrinths – with his two arms draped over her shoulders, holding his hands in front, and his head braced on her shoulder, so that she could hear his breath in her ear. She was neither as tall nor as strong as her father, but she brought an extra rope to tie Marius’s hands in front of her, and she let his feet drag behind her.

“Are you ready to go, darling?” Cosette asked sweetly when she had him in position.

“Take me – anywhere,” Marius murmured, half-catatonic.

Cosette nodded resolutely, and dragged Marius out to the balcony. But then she seemed to remember something, and muttered, “Oh yes!” She briefly left Marius leaning against the rail a moment, reached into her pocket, and placed on the sofa a letter addressed to M. Gillenormand. It was unsigned, and was but a few lines, and ran thus:

“Sir – Marius Pontmercy is a free man, whether under the Republic or under the king. He had decided to vacate your home and continue his convalescence elsewhere. You need not worry that he shall receive the best care – for he is in the hands of one who loves him dearly. If duty or affection move him so, I am sure you may see him again when he chooses.”

Then she returned to the balcony and reached into another pocket of her jacket and pulled out yet another rope, which she tied securely around Marius’s waist – she didn’t dare tie it any higher, for fear that the pressure would interfere with his healing bones. She then helped Marius onto the rail, secured the other end of the rope to its bars, and, slackening the rope little by little, she began to gently lower him down to the grassy lawn, as slowly as she could.

This was the hardest part; dexterity, daring, stealth, audacity and courage Cosette had in spades – but when it came to brute strength, she was no more than the average charming young lady. Yet love held her sinews firm in their gentleness and allowed her to lower him gently to the grassy ground without any jarring thump. When he was safely upon solid ground, she threw the remainder of the rope down after him, and then, using her grappling-hook rope, she climbed down swiftly to join him.

“I don’t know that I can get it down,” she muttered in vexation as she gazed up at the grappling hook spun around the rail of the balcony. “Alas! I liked my little grappling hook!”

“I’ll – erm – buy you another, as soon as I’m able, darling,” said Marius faintly, lying immobile beside her.

“You are so sweet,” returned Cosette, stooping over to kiss his forehead tenderly. She then set about dragging him bodily toward the gate, the same way she had toward the balcony.

“Look, I’ve got him, Papa!” she told her father happily, when they had reached the gate at the edge of the lawn.

“G-good evening, Monsieur Fauchelevent!” said Marius.

“Good evening,” Jean Valjean returned stiffly.

Cosette wasted no time in tossing the rope still attached to Marius over the top of the gate. Jean Valjean caught it, and began to pull at it, dragging Marius, with his prodigious strength, quite easily to the top of the gate. Cosette quickly climbed after him, and Jean Valjean tossed the end of the rope up to her, where she repeated the procedure of lowering him down as gently as possible – this time only a short distance, into Jean Valjean’s waiting arms.

Cosette tossed the rest of the rope down as her father leaned Marius against the gate. He then held his arms out again for his daughter, and she leapt lightly down into them.

“We did it, Papa!” Cosette beamed.

“I’m proud of you, my dear,” returned Jean Valjean with a smile, kissing her cheek fondly before setting her down and taking up Marius once again.

“We’ve got a hackney-coach waiting at the end of the lane,” Cosette informed Marius brightly, gazing up at him now his head was once more braced on Jean Valjean’s high shoulder.

Marius could only nod vaguely. They walked in silence for a moment more.

“He’s a deal lighter than last time,” Jean Valjean muttered carelessly. “Have they been feeding him?” But Marius, with his face pressed so close to Valjean’s, heard every word.

Marius’s entire body tensed. He drew a shuddering breath.

Cosette looked up in alarm. “Does something hurt, Marius?”

“‘ _Th-than last time?_ ’” he repeated, rather loudly for his mouth’s proximity to his savior’s ear. “Oh, Monsieur – it – it was _you_ , then? _You_ saved me from the barricade? _You_ brought me to safety?”

“Oh,” muttered Jean Valjean. “I didn’t mean to – erm –”

Marius flailed and pulled his hands away so dramatically that Jean Valjean lost his grip on him; Cosette managed to keep him from crashing down, but he only flailed again and threw himself into a prostrate position at Jean Valjean’s feet.

“You saved me! I owe you my _life_ , Monsieur!” Marius exclaimed wildly. “Do you know how seriously the Pontmercys take a life debt?!? It must be repaid, it must –”

“This is unnecessary,” said Jean Valjean uncomfortably.

But Marius shook his head, growing more and more insistent. He summoned his strength to try and leap up and seize a hold of Jean Valjean’s hand, but only succeeded in grasping his sleeve, and then slumping down and ripping it clean off his arm.

And there, upon the flesh laid accidentally bare by Marius’s overzealous devotion toward a life debt, Cosette could plainly read the numbers in the fading scars branded across his forearm: _24601_.

“Papa!” she exclaimed. “It is like those convicts we saw at the Barriere du Maine! Mercy upon us, Papa – were _you_ a convict once?”

Now Jean Valjean was gazing at Cosette with abject terror in his eyes. What would Cosette say now, now she knew at last the terrible secret he had never dared to tell? Now she saw him at last for what he truly was?

But Cosette instantly threw herself upon his neck. “How _horrible_ for you, Papa! Did they treat _you_ like that, too? Did they put the chain around your neck? You must have suffered so!”

Valjean sunk down to his knees. Marius was finally able to seize his hand. Cosette kept her arms wrapped around him. For a long time, they did not move from this position. A passing gamin shot them a quizzical look.

“My children,” Jean Valjean said at length, “let us go home. It would appear I have – a lot to tell you both.”

That night, Jean Valjean, agonizingly, at Cosette’s insistence and almost against his will, explained everything to Cosette and Marius. They were amazed, humbled, shamed, heartbroken, horrified, and above all, admiring. Many tears were shed, by all three of them, and many assurances given that Cosette would love her father – and Marius would venerate and come to love him as a father – to the end of their living days; that they would always want him in their lives, that three luckless orphans could make a family together. All mistrust and resentment that had existed between Marius and Valjean had evaporated in the light of truths revealed.

The following morning, they all three slept late, and awoke happy, after their long night of heists and tearful revelations. Instead of their cold habitation of the Rue de l’Homme Arme, they had returned to the house at the Rue Plumet, which Marius had good reason to be familiar with and fond of. Jean Valjean had chosen it for other reasons; it was just possible, after all, that the police had that address under suspicion, after he had given it to Javert on that fateful night.

They ate a hearty breakfast, after which Marius felt strong enough to go out (with Jean Valjean’s help) and sit on his customary bench in the garden beside Cosette. “I’ve never seen it in the daytime,” he noted with a smile as he admired the sunlight filtering through the many-colored trees of autumn. The leaves were falling in grace, fluttering down upon the wind.

Marius felt like a new man this morning, with all that had happened and been revealed the previous night; he felt not only that he was on a path the lead to happiness, but on a path that led to a truer understanding of the world, and of his place and his duties within it – a path shown to him by Jean Valjean. He did not hesitate to share all of this with Cosette, who, leaning her head upon his uninjured shoulder, assured him she felt the same.

But the new man could not leave the old man behind. A little butterfly had landed on his knee; it made Cosette laugh merrily, but Marius’s face crumpled and his lips quivered when he looked upon it.

“Marius, what’s wrong?” asked Cosette.

“My friend, Bossuet,” he said softly, his voice trembling, “used to say that falling snow was like white butterflies! And my – my friend Combeferre – could _draw_ them, anatomically exact, from memory! Though they may have been moths – he didn’t color them, and I’m not much of an entomologist . . . And once, when I’d gone to the Luxembourg Garden in hopes of seeing you – I passed by my friend Jean Prouvaire – sitting very still under a tree – and about four butterflies had landed on him!”

Marius buried his face in his hands and let out a sob.

“Oh, Marius,” said Cosette tenderly, rubbing her hand across his shoulder, “you must miss your poor friends! Come, shall we go and see them, as soon as you’re able?”

Marius raised his teary eyes to stare at her in confusion. “Go and see – their graves, you mean? I shouldn’t think that enemies of the state got very decent ones!”

“Their graves! Whatever do you mean, their graves? I mean visit _them_!”

“My friends are _dead_ ,” said Marius, as if grasping at the last iota of sanity and reality that kept shifting around him into new and frightening shapes. He could not yet dare to hope; he had seen what he had seen.

“Oh Marius! Who told you _that_?” exclaimed Cosette.

“My grandfather,” Marius replied blankly. He seized Cosette’s shoulder, his eyes burning again with intensity. “Cosette, are you telling me –?”

“I’m telling you, Marius,” she returned intently, “that your friends are _not_ dead!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, friends, everyone's favorite barricade boys will show up next chapter! And it will be sillier than this one! There will be a whole THREE chapters of ever-evolving silliness here - the first time I've attempted a multichapter fic in YEARS!
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed Chapter 1! I may have made Gillenormand slightly worse than canon, but I'm not going to feel TOO bad about that either. I've also blatantly ignored any descriptions of what buildings look like, because of artistic license and all that. I leave it to the reader's imagination what Cosette was wearing in this chapter; whether Cosette wearing pants in 1832 or her pulling off this whole heist in a period-accurate gown is more ridiculous is entirely up to you! XD
> 
> Please leave comments! And thanks again for reading! <3


	2. My Cousin Marius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate titles for this chapter: Marius's Astonishments, Mk. 2; The Court of Miracles
> 
> The chapter title "My Cousin Marius" is (unfortunately) not related to our dear Theodule Gillenormand (though he should show up a LITTLE in chapter 3) but, in keeping with the pattern of the first chapter, another play on a movie title - in this case "My Cousin Vinny" which involves a heroic inexperienced lawyer. I toyed with the idea of calling it "The (name of prison) Redemption" after "The Shawshank Redemption" but then I didn't give the prison a name.
> 
> I apologize for the time in between updates; I have no excuses but general malaise, ennui, laziness, frustration with structuring conversations, being distracted by different fic ideas, a bit of holiday busyness/family stuff, and of course, my inability to keep things short! (A little over 8k, this chapter!) I have (re)learned my lesson never to post a word of anything before I've finished writing the whole thing. I hope to have the third and final installment out on or around New Year's - or at very least by Epiphany!
> 
> Enjoy!

"Then is it likely thou wilt undertake

A thing like death to chide away this shame

That copest with death himself to scape from it:

And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy." (Romeo and Juliet, IV.i)

* * *

Let the reader imagine Marius’s astonishment when Cosette produced for him a gazette published on the 7th of June, which reported a remarkable occurrence at the Rue de Chanvrerie barricade, the last remaining barricade in the city. The insurgents, many of whom had already been shot and wounded, continued to advance, to make their last defiant stand before the guns and bayonets and cannons of the National Guard, when suddenly an old man on a white horse rode valiantly into their midst.

Guns had been lowered out of respect and astonishment. The man was evidently known to them. The old man wasted no time in dismounting, climbing the barricade, seizing the leader of the insurgents (who might have put up more resistance, if his latest pistol had not just been shot out of his hand) and effusively embracing him before the crowd.

The embrace saved their lives; the National Guard would not fight against this man. Most of the insurgents were already too injured to put up a fight; they were all quietly arrested – including one who merely staggered out of the wine shop, half-awake, resolutely marched up to the leader’s side and declared he was one of them and would share their fates. Doctors were summoned to treat the wounded on both sides, and all the surviving insurgents had been incarcerated, pending trial, since the day the barricade fell.

Who was this man, who tried to sew peace between the government and the freedom fighters? Who saved with his embrace? Has the reader guessed?

It was General Lafayette.

Marius set the gazette down with trembling hands. He’d seen his friends shot – most vividly, he recalled the shout of pain and the look of terror as Courfeyrac crumpled down from his precipice in the central rank of the barricade – but nothing else before pain and oblivion overtook him. It must have been only minutes after he was dragged away that their savior had arrived.

“I’ve got to go see them,” Marius said at once as he looked up into Cosette's eyes.

“We’ll see them,” Cosette assured him, squeezing his hand, “as soon as you can walk.”

This time was not long in coming. Jean Valjean soon procured him a cane from somewhere, and within a few days, under the fading autumn sun, Cosette’s loving and understanding glances, and his fresh and diligent determination, he felt strong enough to attempt the journey, resting and leaning upon Cosette as needed.

The place the insurgents were imprisoned was not La Force prison; it had not been built to be a prison at all. General Lafayette, far too familiar with the horrors of long imprisonment, had used his influence to make sure they were held all together in an out-of-the way and none-too-horrible place near the outskirts of town. But General Lafayette was not privy to all its goings-on. Their location was, in fact, not given out in the papers, but Jean Valjean returned the next day with this information, and no one questioned him.

Cosette and Marius alighted from their hackney-coach at the gate. The prison house looked, to all outside appearance, like any other tall, imposing bourgeois dwelling, with a large back garden and a porter at the door.

“We are not taking visitors,” he told Marius and Cosette before either one of them had even opened their mouth, as they approached him.

“Sir, we know that prisoners – the insurgents of the June 5th insurrection – are being held here,” Marius returned evenly. He fished in his pockets for his credentials, and held them out to the man. “I am a lawyer. I come here as their legal representation.”

“No visitors means no visitors,” the porter insisted, crossing his arms and returning the credentials without looking at them.

“But how are they to receive the proper legal defense, if no one knows where they’re being held and no one is allowed in?” Cosette wondered aloud.

“Not my concern,” the porter returned. “You’d better be going, you two. This is a restricted area!”

“This can’t be legal!” Cosette insisted, outraged.

“It probably is, darling,” Marius murmured to her. “You heard from your father how unfair the law can be! They’ll have well-trained lawyers of their own, seeing to it that legal loopholes allow it.”

“Monsieur the lawyer understands well,” the porter returned with a snide smile, “how the might of the law can be manipulated to serve any end that can be named! Now be off with you, before I summon the police!”

“Wait,” insisted Marius, fishing for something else in the depths of his coat-pockets, something he was vaguely embarrassed to still have, and presenting it to the porter. “I’m – erm – I’m also a baron?”

The porter’s whole bearing changed at once into doglike obsequiousness. “Oh! Oh, a thousand apologizes, my good Monsieur! Had I but known! This way! This way!”

And he led them inside at once.

“Good heavens,” Marius muttered to Cosette as they followed the man along the corridor, “this place must be _torture_ for them!”

They climbed up several flights of stairs; Marius panted and leaned heavily on Cosette, but was determined to make it; Cosette saw the look in his eyes and only nodded, determined to help him reach his friends.

“Through here, sir,” the porter said at last, gesturing toward a set of tall, imposing double doors on the fourth-floor landing.

Marius took a deep breath, and tried to brace himself against the shock of seeing his friends alive – still, perhaps, their lively old selves. Or would they be weakened and subdued by their defeat and their long imprisonment? He wouldn’t have thought it possible for them, but he’d learned much from Jean Valjean about just what sort of damage a long imprisonment could do to a man’s spirit. And he recalled, almost with a smile, how nervous he had been the first time Courfeyrac had brought him to meet his friends in the back room of the Café Musain; at that time, Courfeyrac’s words had resonated in his ear, and he felt himself a quiet mouse descending into a den of hungry cats.

He felt Cosette squeeze his hand, and he released his breath. He caught her eye, returned a strained smile for her reassuring one. 

“I’ll give you a minute,” Cosette whispered, “to catch up first.”

Marius nodded gratefully. He was prepared. He moved forward and opened the door.

It seemed this place was a deliberate ruse of a house that hid a sort of dungeon. He was greeted with the sight of heavy iron bars running along what seemed to be the whole length of the floor, with a single padlocked door; the walls and floors were stone and torches in sconces flickered intermittently along the walls. Behind the bars a large mass of people lay at repose; and several of them turned their heads curiously as the doors banged open.

Marius registered all of this but dimly as his eyes, following the trajectory of the bullet, pierced into one man with a wounded arm, near the front of the pack. His whole frame trembled. 

He was _not_ prepared.

“Courfeyrac!” he cried in a strangled voice.

“ _Marius_?!?”

“Marius!” 

More familiar faces had run up to the bars in excitement. There was Bahorel, with his dashing battle scars and his mile-wide aggressive smile; there – Joly and Bossuet, diffusing their sunny good-humor; there, Feuilly, jumping to his feet, ready and eager as ever; there, Jean Prouvaire, his wistful eyes alight with radiant joy!

“I don’t believe it!”

“It’s you!”

“You’re _alive_!”

Marius wasn’t sure what happened next, but he had crossed the distance in three seconds to reach between the bars and take Courfeyrac in his arms. Courfeyrac’s warm embrace squeezed him tight, crushing his recovering collarbone against the iron bar, which caused an involuntary whimper.

“Sorry, sorry!” Courfeyrac loosened his grip and held him out by the shoulders to look him in the eyes. Marius’s vision was blurred; Courfeyrac’s eyes also shined. “Lord, Marius! We thought you were _dead_!”

“I – I thought you were dead, too.”

Marius throat tightened again and he resigned himself to merely drinking in the sight of them; his gaze traveled across all those in the front rank who had run up to meet him; all were beaming. They all seemed utterly delighted to see him – far more so than he had ever expected them to be. They all crowded the bars of the dungeon around him, to reach through and grasp his hands, clap his one good shoulder.

“ _God_ , it’s good to see you!” exclaimed Bossuet, as Joly, his lips quivering, nodded vigorously.

“It _enlivens_ the soul like the airy breath of spring in this sepulchral place!” beamed Jean Prouvaire.

“It’s _fall_ , Jehan!” Feuilly laughed. “At least here in the northern hemisphere! But perhaps Marius brings the spirit of spring across the continents!”

“Look at you, surviving your first revolution!” Bahorel boomed. “From what I hear, you went down fighting like a _beast_! And with the battle scars to prove it!”

It was certainly true that a number of half-healed scars now tarnished the Germanic sweetness of Marius’s countenance; they made him look older, and perhaps that was apt. Marius had been inclined to be embarrassed at first, but Cosette had assured him he looked terribly dashing, and really, who else was he trying to impress?

Behind those frontrunners, meanwhile, more forms moved in the darkness behind them, the vague shapeless crowds of men Marius did not know and had seen but once on the day of the revolution, in the depths of their dismal cell. A shadowed, six-legged chimera was making its way toward the outer bars and into sight – a chimera, now it got closer, composed of three men: foremost Enjolras, who was very pale, supported on either side by Combeferre and Grantaire.

“Citizen Marius,” breathed Enjolras, reaching through the bars to place his hand on Marius’s shoulder, his eyes blazing with that subdued and lugubrious grandeur that befit a ferocious archangel shackled to the earth, whose eagle’s wings had the strength to summon hurricanes if they were but unchained, “the Republic thanks you for your service. You are welcome back to your brothers’ company.”

Marius smiled vaguely as Grantaire patted his other shoulder and Combeferre briefly pressed his hand. He’d never known exactly how to speak to a man like Enjolras.

“Are you – are you well, Enjolras?” he inquired, gesturing vaguely to the two men supporting him, and the chalk-white of his countenance. Enjolras was almost the only one of them that Marius had _not_ seen get shot, yet he seemed, physically, the worst off. The others had their arms in slings, bandages peeking out from under their shirts, walked with limps, or winced to move in certain ways, but they all seemed quite energetic.

“He was quite ill – some delirious fever – for a long time – when we first arrived,” Combeferre answered for him gravely. “But he’s recovering well – thought it was very curious that he should be hit hardest – he didn’t have any infected wounds or anything, like the rest of us.”

“Yes, it was – hard to watch,” Grantaire noted darkly.

“It was because his spirit was at war,” said Jean Prouvaire. “He had carried the light of rebellion within; he had carried all of the barricade within – they had sustained him as much as he them, and in its defeat, the spirit was nearly extinguished! Yet even the bitterest defeat could not break the bright spirit of our glorious leader!”

“I’m pretty sure he was just ill, Jehan,” Combeferre asserted with amusement.

“And it’s a _miracle_ none of us caught it!” observed Joly.

“ _Might_ be a miracle,” Combeferre grinned. “ _Might_ be a coincidence!”

“And _might_ be a physical manifestation of a soul in torment!” insisted Jean Prouvaire, stroking Enjolras’s arm consolingly. “Do remember – there are more things in heaven and earth, my dear Combeferre, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!” Enjolras looked vaguely amused, but only gave Jean Prouvaire a gentle smile.

“In any event, there’s no need to worry,” Joly assured him, looking somewhat like he was trying to assure himself. “He’s been greatly improving in the last week!”

Enjolras nodded solemnly, his lofty glance fixing upon Marius. “I am well, Citizen Marius,” he said.

“Citizen – _Marius_?” a voice asked from further back in the cell – a soft, ragged, sleepy-sounding voice. “Marius – Pontmercy?”

“Yes, it’s him! He’s here!” Courfeyrac called merrily to the speaker in question. “Come and see him!”

Marius cast his glance curiously toward the shadowy source of the voice. Who else here knew his name?

Another six-legged chimera approached the front of the bars near Marius from within the depths of the cell – this one slower, and all its elements shorter. But it, too, was composed of three people – an old man in the center, flanked by a young boy and a teenaged girl: M. Mabeuf, Gavroche and Eponine. Three people Marius had most _definitely_ seen die.

He was going mad, surely. His vision blurred once again. He tottered.

Bossuet reached quickly through the bars to brace him by the arm. “Why Marius,” he said, gently but with a glint in his eye, “you look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

“He’s had a terrible shock, poor fellow!” said Joly. “Marius – sit down, take a breath.”

Marius would have sunk to his knees without Joly’s words. He raised his eyes helplessly to the blurred phantoms of the old man and the two siblings supporting him – his father’s dearest friend and the children of his savior, all of whom Marius had let down – had let _die_. But now, somehow, they were there. They were _right_ _there_ in front of him!

Courfeyrac’s hand was on his shoulder now and he was muttering something kindly. The old man, too, had kneeled down to Marius’s level.

“Come,” said Jean Prouvaire tenderly, facing his friends and kneeling down himself, “let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings . . .”

“The death of kings would not be a sad story, Jehan,” observed Enjolras, who nonetheless sat down as well, and the rest followed his example. “At least, of kings as an institution; there is always great tragedy in the death of any human brother . . .”

Marius was not paying attention; his eyes were fixed on the old man in front of him; he blinked repeatedly to try and assure himself he was not hallucinating.

“Marius, poor child,” Mabeuf said, “what a blessing for this old man to see you again!”

Marius’s eyes traveled over to Eponine. Her wounded hand was still wrapped in a bandage and hanging in a sling and she looked – a little embarrassed. She was biting her lip. She muttered, “H-hello, Monsieur Marius,” mechanically and avoided his eyes. 

Gavroche, once the old man was sitting, ran to the bars and offered Marius his hand.

He took it, and it was _solid_. The child’s fingers were warm, bony, squirming. He clasped Marius’s hand firmly.

“Well met again, Citizen Marius!” he said, and then dashed off to toward Bahorel. Marius watched him go dazedly and then turned back to M. Mabeuf and his innocent, owlish eyes, slightly concerned, awaiting a response.

Gavroche’s solid hand had grounded him into the reality of their being here, alive; it gave Marius his voice back, but there was only one thing to say.

“How are you alive?”

Mabeuf smiled. “The good God must have willed it so,” he replied softly, “willed this old man to live another day, for it was none of my doing but by chance. Tell me – do you recall that my brother was a Curé?”

“Of course.”

“Well, not long ago, I lived on a street where I could always hear guns firing. I could not sleep with the noise; the only thing that allowed me to rest was a certain tincture of herbs I had grown – combined, they can be taken as a very effective sedative. The formula was an old secret of the monastic community, but because my brother knew how nervous I got, he shared the secret with me, and I could grow the herbs myself.”

“Yes, it’s _fascinating_ stuff!” Joly put in brightly.

“However, it is meant to be taken is small doses to induce peace and sleep. Any more can slow down the heart so much that one appears dead for many hours . . .”

“You’d – taken that sedative . . .?” Marius stammered.

“I _had_ been having a rather trying day,” Mabeuf admitted sadly. “I thought perhaps if I could have a sleep, I could think better of my situation, see some way out of it, but I must have, in my distress, mixed the tincture poorly . . .”

“But you were _shot_! You were _full_ of bullet holes!”

“Yes, and that’s why I call it an act of Providence, my dear child! Not one of those bullets hit anything vital, and yet – I would have bled to death all the same from so many gaping wounds over so many hours lying there, were it not that my slowed heart-rate made me bleed out much slower as well!”

Marius released and incredulous breath, staring at him. “I don’t believe this,” he repeated. He reached through the bars, seized Mabeuf’s hand, and dropped his tears onto it. He rose to his feet again, lifting the old man with him, and the others followed suit. “Dear, _dear_ Mabeuf – I thank _God_ for his mercy!”

“And Combeferre _still_ will not affirm miracles!” beamed Jean Prouvaire, taking Gavroche’s place on M. Mabeuf’s other side, and placing a hand on his shoulder. His eyes drifted over to Bahorel, his grin widening. “Even when we have multiple examples right before our eyes!” 

“Yes, Bahorel, too, was thought dead,” Combeferre agreed, “and we’d given upon on restoring him, but it turned out to be what the medical community would call Lazarus syndrome – and his heart started again five minutes later! But it’s hardly the first recorded case of such a thing!”

“And the first thing I saw when I woke up, piled among the dead, was a couple of Guards dragging off Jehan!” Bahorel informed Marius. “But when I went after them, I was captured myself.”

“Your effort was appreciated, my dear fellow!” smiled Jean Prouvaire. “The Guard who’d been assigned to shoot _me_ , meanwhile, just had _terrible_ aim! He only really hit my arm, but he didn’t bother affirming I was dead, and while the soldiers were busy with the artillery, a very brave grisette in one of the nearby houses came out and bandaged my wound!”

“For all we lost the battle, we truly had _miraculously_ good luck!” Bossuet smiled.

“Yes, it seems that little street corner in front of the Corinthe was the _true_ Court of Miracles!” grinned Courfeyrac.

“But – Eponine –” Marius went on, his eyes drifting back over to her. “ _You_ died in my arms! How –?”

“I – really did believe I was dying, Monsieur!” Eponine stammered, unable to look him in the eye. “You must believe me, Marius! I didn’t – think –” She stopped abruptly, and only glared at the stony floor.

“I do – believe you,” Marius assured her. “Dear Eponine, I’m _delighted_ to find you well, I only – wonder –”

“You are _delighted_ , Monsieur?” Eponine said hopefully. “I have _delighted_ you?”

“Of course,” said Marius with his best grin; it faded, however, when Eponine reached through the bars to stroke his cheek. It didn’t feel quite right to let her do that, considering Cosette, so he flinched away from her touch. The instant he did, Eponine looked like she’d been struck. She hastily turned away to dash back into the shadowy depths of the dungeon, calling over her shoulder, “Father Mabeuf will explain!”

“But – Eponine –” Marius faltered.

“Let her alone for now,” Jean Prouvaire advised Marius. “Conquering one’s unrequited love is no easy feat!”

“As I well know,” muttered Marius.

“Poor child,” said Mabeuf again. “I had only seen her but once before that day at the barricade! And I had thought her an angel – for she came in my hour of need! When I saw her again at the barricade, poor child, she looked as weary and troubled as I, so –”

“So you offered her a bit of your herbal sedative!”

“Yes, she really was only shot it in the hand – but she felt her heart slowing from the tincture, and thought – well –”

“That she was dying,” Marius muttered. He shook his head again. “This is madness!”

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it!” Jean Prouvaire said brightly. “The method of all those Shakespearean priests, who help the heroines fake their deaths with mysterious herbal tonics that slow the pulse! I wonder now if the Bard didn’t know about this himself, and its connection to the monastic community!”

“Alright,” said Marius, accepting this, “but _Gavroche_ –”

“Our Gavroche is a cunning thespian,” said Bahorel, who was lifting Gavroche up on one of his arms. “While these two were center stage, enacting Hero’s and Juliet’s false deaths to the tears of all the barricade, Gavroche was operating backstage – to flip the script and change the ending of our tale of woe!”

Marius stared blankly. “What?”

Gavroche smiled as he climbed down from Bahorel’s high shoulder. “Did I ever tell you about my connections in the theatre, Monsieur?”

“Erm, n-no,” replied Marius. He could count the number of conversations he’d had with this boy on one hand, after all.

“Well, I knew a fellow who worked backstage, who handed out vials of fake blood like candy! It was always useful to have a little on hand! And once, he taught us a trick to appear dead, by shoving a rock under your armpit to cut off your circulation –”

“Are you telling me you faked your death – on purpose?!?” demanded Marius.

Gavroche shrugged. “It was the only way to get out of there without getting shot; no need to shoot a corpse! And then, after I’d been brought back to the barricade, I figured – why waste this opportunity? I’ll use this chance to sneak out and try and find a way to save us; and if I can sneak up on one of the Guards who thought he’d killed me and terrorize him by pretending to be a ghost coming to haunt him for his participation in child murder – well then, all the better!”

Marius blinked. “And – and – you found –?”

“He was the one who found Lafayette for us!” Bahorel affirmed, thumping Gavroche on the back. “Banged on his door and asked him to do his duty for the people fighting for freedom! And the old man _listened_! He rode straight out to save us! Gavroche, through Lafayette, was our savior!”

“Vive General Lafayette!” grinned Gavroche.

“Are you forgetting the part where he had us all arrested?” Enjolras demanded. 

“Bosh! Getting arrested is a matter of course!” said Gavroche. “I’ve done a prison break or two in my time!”

“And he probably couldn’t _help_ that,” noted Combeferre, “a compromise – with the government – for our lives.”

“And we mustn’t forget, Enjolras – Lafayette was a friend of Lamarque!” Feuilly added. “He was always promoting the ideals of the Revolution! He had saved the people of his own province from starvation, and they loved him so much that no matter how often the statesmen kicked him out of the National Assembly for being too radical, his people kept on reelecting him! He helped to write the Rights of Man! Though he has not always followed through on its promises, one must admit,” he conceded.

“He belonged to a masonic lodge!” added Jean Prouvaire. “The noble brotherhood! And he’s an abolitionist! He bought a plantation for the express purpose of freeing the slaves!”

“And did you know that he once consulted with Mesmer himself?” Joly piped up. “He was treated with magnets for his seasickness, because he was always getting terribly ill on his journeys to America!”

“Not _quite_ as relevant to this discussion,” Bossuet murmured fondly.

“But _fascinating_ nonetheless!” grinned Joly.

“Yes, but even after _all that_ – after all he’d done and fought for – he practically gave Louis-Phillipe the throne!” Enjolras protested. “Are we forgetting how he betrayed the Republic in 1830?”

“There is that,” agreed Bahorel. “Like so many old men, who lose their courage with their youth!”

“He is a large part of the reason we still have a monarchy,” Enjolras pointed out.

“He’s also the reason we’re all still alive, Enjolras,” Combeferre said flatly.

Enjolras sighed heavily. “Yes,” he agreed softly, casting his blazing glance over all his wounded friends surrounding him, a tender glance alight with love, “and for _that_ , I shall ever bless and thank him.” There was a pause where everyone smiled at each other, but the Enjolras added, “But of course, if he hadn’t preserved the monarchy in 1830, he wouldn’t have _had_ to save us; we wouldn’t have _needed_ to risk our necks in another revolution!”

Most of his grinning friends laughed fondly. “It’s true, though,” muttered Bahorel.

“Ah, such is the fate of a man who tries to compromise between peace and progress,” Combeferre observed sadly. “Nobody appreciates his efforts!”

“At least they still love him in America,” Feuilly shrugged.

“But that’s _quite_ enough philosophizing out of us, Marius!” put in Courfeyrac. “Now you know how we survived, but _you’ve_ not told us all that happened to you since the barricade – how you escaped, where you’ve been, _how_ you’ve been!”

“Well – I was –” Marius began.

“Marius was also a prisoner,” said another voice decisively. Cosette had opened the door and rounded the corner into the room at last. She glided up to where Marius stood, leaning on his cane, and installed herself as a support beneath his free arm.

All eyes suddenly fixed upon her. Eponine quickly averted her eyes and retreated further into the shadows. Joly gasped.

“Marius, is this –?”

“ _Her_?” Bossuet finished.

“Mademoiselle,” said Courfeyrac, holding out his hand to her. Cosette accepted it, and Courfeyrac leaned and kissed her hand gallantly. His eyes fixed on her, and holding a glint that was mischievous yet chivalrous. “My, but it is no wonder Pontmercy lost his head over _you_! Mademoiselle Cosette, I presume?” And he added, under his breath, “And the late Mademoiselle Lanoire, if I’m not mistaken!”

“You presume correctly, Monsieur,” Cosette returned, smiling, “and shall I, in turn, presume you are Monsieur Courfeyrac?”

“Oh, Marius! You _told_ her about me!”

“But I never – I never told _you_ her name,” Marius said in confusion.

“Yes, I know,” Courfeyrac replied, crossing his arms and frowning. “You never told me _anything_ about her; it was intolerable! But you know, you _did_ sleep about three feet from my bed, so eventually I heard you sighing her name in your dreams!”

Marius turned red. Joly and Cosette both giggled; Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Grantaire and Bahorel snickered; Feuilly, Mabeuf and Jean Prouvaire only smiled.

“But – but you were imprisoned as well?” Feuilly pursued when the laugher had subsided and Cosette had been introduced (guessing correctly more often than not) to the rest of Marius’s friends. “How did you escape?”

“Cosette scaled the wall and rescued me,” Marius returned proudly.

“Three cheers for Mademoiselle Cosette!” roared Bahorel, reaching through the bars to shake her heartily by the hand. “A champion of liberty!”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly the same,” Marius hastened to tell them. “I wasn’t – behind bars or anything. But I was wounded and – I’d been taken to my grandfather’s – and the world was cut off, and I thought you all were dead, and –”

“So it was more a prison of the body,” said Jean Prouvaire thoughtfully and esoterically, “and a prison of the mind! Well, really – a prison of the mind is the truest and most inescapable of prisons! Any man could bear a physical prison did it not also hold a prison of the mind! I daresay all of us could be bounded in a nutshell and count ourselves kings of infinite space – were it not that we have bad dreams!”

Jean Prouvaire was suddenly frowning darkly.

“Bad dreams?” Cosette wondered aloud. “I daresay – a life behind bars – with such brutal memories as you must have –”

“Life _itself_ becomes a bad dream – when a mind and soul are so trapped within themselves, when every thread of beauty and expression fades upon the air and flees from us, like Tantalus’s low-hanging fruit!”

“Don’t mind him,” murmured Bahorel, moving to pat Jean Prouvaire soothingly on the back. “He’s been terribly upset not to have any pens or papers in here, to record or express his melancholy or his daily joys. That’s a hard thing for a mind like his. He tried to write on the walls with an old rusty nail, but the guard took it away – out of pure spite, the fiend!”

“The golden threads of _ideas_ – every ripe, fresh gift of the Muses – _dying_ as fast as they are _born_!” Jean Prouvaire exclaimed passionately. “When they cannot be recorded, they are lost to the swift and shifting thought-currents on the river of working memory! Nothing gold can stay for long within this distracted globe! Nothing new under the sun! Only little snatches of old half-remembered phrases that _others_ have written! It is a _nightmare_ , Mademoiselle! It is an unending bad dream! It is the slow death of the soul!”

“And while _he’s_ been pining after writing implements,” added Grantaire. “ _I_ haven’t had a drink in months!”

“Probably for best, really,” Combeferre muttered in an undertone.

“The first few weeks were rough, of course,” Joly remembered with a haunted smile, “not helped by the fact that Enjolras was ill at the same time, but he was much better after he got it all out of his system!”

“Yes, I like you _much_ better when you’re sober, and not jeering at everything I believe in,” agreed Enjolras, with a smile.

Grantaire returned the smile, a little uncertainly. “Well,” he muttered, “I wasn’t going to – drag you down any further – when _you_ were at your lowest!”

“Yes, poor Enjolras has been _pining_ for a sense of purpose!” Jean Prouvaire added to Marius, instantly forgetting his own fit of melancholy. “Feuilly as well! They do not complain, but their spirits cannot be free until they are engaged in delivering the peoples of the world! And it’s very hard to do so within these walls, with no word of the world outside!”

“It seems we’ve all been pining for something,” grinned Courfeyrac. “But I’m sure you, Marius, know _nothing_ of pining!”

There was another round of good-natured laughter as Marius blushed again.

“But what have you been pining for, Monsieur Courfeyrac?” Cosette wondered.

“Oh, of _everything_ , Mademoiselle – some things I could not admit to in a respectable young lady’s company! But most of all, really – just of _walking_! The liberty of the libertine – knowing the pavements are mine as much as anyone’s! Of seeing the sights of the streets, of the simple freedom of going wherever I please!”

“Sauntering,” agreed Bahorel, “the defiance of all constraint! I concur – though I also miss breaking things. There’s nothing to break in here; the walls take too long, curse them!”

“Breaking things was the best,” agreed Gavroche.

“I miss flowers,” murmured Eponine, very softly.

“Ah, flowers!” agreed Mabeuf and Jean Prouvaire, crowding around her and nodding vigorously.

“Yes, many of us pine for beauty,” said Combeferre thoughtfully. “As do I, really, but of a different sort, perhaps! Prouvaire seeks for a blank canvas of a world that he can paint out his visions of beauty upon! I yearn for the world’s mysteries! For the beauties of nature and thought and language and all that have yet to be discovered! Simply for _learning_ something new!”

“And of course, we all know what _Joly’s_ been pining for!” laughed Bahorel, winking and elbowing him in the ribs so hard he fell sideways against Bossuet.

“Musichetta,” Joly sighed dreamily, “is the dearest, cleverest, loveliest girl in the world!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little sheet of paper. “She managed to find where we were imprisoned, and she tossed a little rock with a letter attached up through our window! To see her elegant writing, to hear her words of love in such a place as this! She is an _angel_!”

“She is at that,” Bossuet agreed with a smile. “As for me, I wouldn’t say I’m the pining sort in general, but I won’t deny – that I miss my old coat! From what I hear, the doctors cut it off of me as they were preparing to remove the bullet.”

“Thus his luck holds,” said Grantaire, “for _his_ one wish might be the only one we can’t easily come by if we ever get out of this place!”

“But never fear, old friend!” said Joly, “for if we follow the Symmetric Property, which states that if a=b then b=a, then – if an old coat is an old friend, then it follows that an old friend is old coat as well! Therefore,” he suddenly jumped up to drape himself over Bossuet’s shoulders, “ _I_ will be your old coat, my dear fellow!”

“It doesn’t _work_ if you’re not ill, Joly!” Bossuet protested, though of course he was laughing heartily.

“Well, I’m not ill _now_ ,” Joly returned, still hanging from Bossuet’s shoulder, “but I’m sure I will be again soon! Prisons in such close quarters are absolute cesspools of contagion! I must repeat how absolutely _miraculous_ it’s been that we’ve mostly kept so well! One cannot trust such luck to hold – especially not _yours,_ and if you get sick, then I’m bound to share it!”

“Yes,” said Bossuet, lowering Joly gently down, with an arm still around him, and turning back to Marius and Cosette. “Marius, Mademoiselle, as you can see, we’re all going a bit mad in here. I don’t suppose there’s any way you could help spring us out, before our dear Joly combusts from stress?”

(“Stress is also a risk factor!” Joly whispered to Bossuet, who only patted him soothingly.)

But Marius had seen a light, a path of purpose opening up before him. “Yes, of course!” he said at once, a fresh flood of determination filling him. He laid a hand across his heart, gripped the bar in front of him tightly. “Of course, my friends, I will do everything in power to get you out here! I swear it! I swear on . . .” He cast about for something to swear on.

“You don’t – have to swear, Marius,” Courfeyrac told him. “Just try your best; we don’t mind –”

“I swear on my father’s grave,” said Marius solemnly, “you will be free again!”

Mabeuf’s lip quivered. Several of the others smiled vaguely. No one really knew how to respond to this sudden unsolicited intensity.

“Well,” Courfeyrac said at last, with a nervous laugh, “we can certainly trust in such a promise!”

“And I’ll help!” Cosette added eagerly. “My father has a great deal of experience escaping from prison! I can bring him in to help case the joint, learn about the structure and defenses, and Marius _said_ he’d get me another grappling hook!”

“And your father can consult with _me_ if he’s forgotten anything about prison-breaks!” Gavroche grinned.

“Excellent! I’m sure your experience will be of use!”

“Well – that isn’t really – what I was thinking –” Marius stammered.

“I know it shall be a challenge, carrying so many wounded men from such high place!” Cosette conceded, smiling sweetly, “but we can overcome _any_ challenge together, darling!”

“No, I – I wasn’t really thinking of doing a prison-break at all!” said Marius.

“Yes, there’s clearly a better way!” added Jean Prouvaire.

“Thank you,” breathed Marius, relieved that _someone_ understood the more reasonable solution.

“We could _all_ fake our deaths!”

Marius buried his face in hand.

“Marius and Mademoiselle Cosette could get a hold of some of M. Mabeuf’s herbal sedative! We could be smuggled out in _coffins_ , symbolically dying in the downfall of our cause, and somebody could befriend the gravedigger and break us all out after sundown, and we would rise again, new men, in a new hope for a new Republic, and we could put on disguises and change our names and –”

“And my father could help with _that_ , too!” Cosette exclaimed. “With the planning _and_ the disguises! I think he has some very fine wigs!”

“And I know a fellow called the Changer,” added Bahorel, “who rents out all sorts of disguises for criminal sorts – though only one size, so they’d be tight on me and baggy on you and Joly, but –”

There was a sudden creak of a door; a guard had just entered. Everyone fell silent.

“Quick, your hat!” Courfeyrac hissed suddenly to Eponine.

Gavroche hastened to pass his sister a cap which she used to hastily hide her hair, and then pull her baggy jacket further around her. She retreated into the shadows. The guard was unconcerned as he unlocked the door and entered the cell, and merely cleared a few empty trays and replaced an empty water bucket with a full one with a fresh dipper. Several prisoners hastened forward for a drink. 

“The guards still think she’s a boy,” Courfeyrac whispered to Marius. “Wouldn’t be quite proper to let her stay with us, otherwise. But it would be too cruel to let the poor girl be imprisoned all on her own!”

Eponine smiled a little despite herself at hearing Courfeyrac’s words. The guard closed the cell door behind him and glanced at Marius and Cosette.

“Monsieur le Baron,” he said, nodding vaguely, “the porter wishes to know how much longer you intend to stay, and if you require any refreshments or –”

Marius held up a hand. “No need. Five more minutes, sir.”

The guard bowed deeply and departed.

Gavroche instantly reclaimed his sister’s cap, jammed it on his own head and took off with it. Eponine’s smile widened.

Marius turned back to face his friends.

“My friends,” he said, “I really – was not thinking of everyone faking their deaths and going into disguise, either. Have you – erm – have you all forgotten that I’m a lawyer?”

“I actually _did_ forget that,” said Grantaire, scratching his head and shrugging. “You always seemed like a poet.”

“A lawyer on paper,” said Jean Prouvaire, “but a poet in his soul!”

“But the – the paper can help you,” said Marius. “I can go to court to defend you and try and get your charges dropped! You won’t _have_ to change your names or go on the run!”

“Well _that’s_ no fun,” said Gavroche.

“The law’s nothing but a fat, ugly, bootlicking servant of the bourgeois,” observed Bahorel. “I wouldn’t trust it to set us free.”

“Yes, but I really think we ought to at least _try_ to get you out through legal means!” Several faces were gazing at him suspiciously. He held up his hands. “Not out of any actual _respect_ for the law, of course! As if I _could_ respect it, after all I learned from Cosette’s father about how it ruined him and so many others! Merely out of practicality! Because I _also_ learned from him how very hard a life on the run can be! You’re never truly free of it, even if you’re free _physically_!”

“It’s true,” Cosette nodded sadly, “as my dear papa could attest! We were always hiding and moving and avoiding police! He changed his name half a dozen times!”

“I am becoming _deeply_ fascinated by Mademoiselle Cosette’s dear papa,” observed Bahorel.

“Oh, he’s an _excellent_ man!” Marius told them fervently. “If you remember the older fellow who came to barricade and gave away his last National Guard uniform – or if you remember old Monsieur Leblanc from the Luxembourg Garden – both were him! And he rescued me from the barricade himself! He is always giving his money away to the poor! I have learned so much from him about how to be a good man!”

“Why, Marius,” said Combeferre with a bit of smirk, “does Bonaparte have a successor?”

“Other than the Bourbons,” muttered Enjolras.

“Yes!” Marius nodded. “But I want to spare you his fate! And because I have a lawyer’s license, I have the means to at least _try_!”

“And by the way, I claim partial credit for that,” Bossuet put in. “If I hadn’t saved Marius from being scratched off by Blondeau, none of this would be possible!”

“Yes, you’re a hero, Bossuet,” said Joly fondly, patting his arm.

“Really, what a web of fate had brought us here!” exclaimed Jean Prouvaire. “All these tiny connections – chance encounters – that can change the course of our lives, even the course of all human history! And all have been brought together in such a way – is if to _un_ cross our ill-fated stars! Perhaps Providence is looking after us . . .”

“Providing miraculous correctives to every obstacle presented to us,” Joly nodded along, grinning, “so that all tends toward the good!”

“Very well, Marius,” grinned Courfeyrac, “we consent to let you try lawyering us out of jail!”

“Or,” said Gavroche, pulling a jangling ring of keys from his pocket, “we could just escape now! I stole these while the guard was here!”

“Gavroche, _no_!”

“We _just_ agreed to try a legal method!”

Gavroche tossed the keys down to the floor at Marius’s feet in disgust. “You never let me do anything fun,” he grumbled.

* * *

It will interest the reader little, perhaps, to hear a lengthy explanation of all the legal codes and loopholes Marius employed in the pursuit of his friends’ freedom, how the cases were argued, the shifting mood of the people in regards to the insurgents, the hours of careful study, and the gathering of evidence for the defense and the prosecution. We will confine ourselves, then, to a simple explanation: he was as terrifyingly, prodigiously _good_ at lawyering as he was at barricade-fighting and language acquisition. The law, in his hands, was a sandy clay for molding and forming; it yielded to him more readily and obsequiously than the porter had. Nonetheless, the cases took several months in the courts to be fully argued out, and every day, he returned to his friends’ dwelling to bring them word of his progress and enjoy their company. 

Cosette was engaged, meanwhile, in procuring the prisoners some little comforts with which to endure their confinement, which she brought to them when she came in the evenings with Marius. Jean Valjean stood guard outside the door and signaled to them when to hide their things from the approaching guards.

She brought baskets of bright flowers for Mabeuf and Eponine. (Eponine smiled very awkwardly to accept a gift from Cosette – and Jean Prouvaire and Gavroche wove them into her hair when the guards were out of sight. Mabeuf told her how lovely she looked with them and her smile was radiant.) She brought a notebook and pen for Jean Prouvaire. (“My dear Marius, I’m afraid you and I must now fight a duel,” he had exclaimed, his eyes streaming with tears, “for I am in _love_ with your Cosette!”) She sought out Musichetta and, with the aid of Marius pulling rank, was able to bring her into visit, to Joly and Bossuet’s delight. She brought Grantaire a single small flask of his favorite brandy. She hunted up rare and obscure books that Combeferre and Mabeuf had requested. She brought Gavroche and Bahorel a basketful of highly breakable sedimentary rocks. She brought gazettes and treatises to Feuilly and Enjolras. She engaged Marius to search all the police evidence (under the pretext of using it in his legal case) and Jean Valjean to search all known dealers of stolen goods in search of Bossuet’s old coat. But she was at a loss for what she could do for Courfeyrac.

“Oh, think nothing of it, dear Mademoiselle,” Courfeyrac grinned to her, when she apologized for being unable to bring him ‘walking’ or ‘freedom’ in his cell. “That’s what Marius is for! And it is enough for me, in the meanwhile,” he added, casting his glance out at the others delighting in Cosette’s gifts, “to see my friends so happy!”

At long last, around Christmastime, Marius finally won the case, and the Friends of the ABC and associates were set free into a sparkling snowy Paris. They stood for a long moment breathing in the cold air of freedom and breathing it out in steam. 

“You did it, my boy!” Mabeuf beamed to Marius. “Your father would be proud.”

Marius broke down at these words; he pressed Mabeuf’s hands firmly, and his tears fell again. Cosette and Courfeyrac hastened to stroke his shoulders soothingly.

When it began to snow, Bossuet again observed a plague of white butterflies, and Jean Valjean invited Mabeuf to come drink a cup of tea with him. Eponine decided to accompany them, and Gavroche, struggling a moment in indecision, elected for the moment to follow after his sister.

“These two dear children,” Mabeuf was telling Jean Valjean as the four of them tromped away, “seemed to drop from _heaven_ when I needed them!”

“I assure you, where we come from is quite the _opposite_ of heaven, Monsieur,” Eponine observed. “And alas, my poor sister has not escaped it yet!”

“And _my_ two children,” Gavroche remembered softly as they passed out of earshot, “I wonder what’s become of them, out in the cold!”

Marius turned to face his remaining friends. “What will you do now?” he asked them at length, with arm wrapped around Cosette to keep her warm. “Will you stay in Paris?”

“It’s hard to know,” Combeferre admitted. “One must get a sense of the people’s mood again; perhaps it is better to lay low away and take stock of the situation.”

“You’re all certainly welcome to stay with us as long as you need to get your bearings,” Cosette assured them. “And certainly, you must stay for the wedding!”

“The _wedding_!” exclaimed Courfeyrac.

“Yes!” beamed Cosette. “Marius has proposed! We are getting married!”

“Oh, congratulations!”

“That’s _wonderful_!”

“But wait,” said Bossuet, “I thought the whole problem was that you needed your grandfather’s permission to marry at your age, and he wouldn’t give it to you?”

“That’s being handled,” Marius grinned mysteriously.

“Yes, Papa is an old hand at falsifying legal documents!” added Cosette.

“I reiterate, Mademoiselle Cosette,” said Bahorel reverently, his eyes drifting toward the vanishing back of Jean Valjean, “that your papa is my _hero_.”

“Well, I think we can certainly manage to lay low until then,” grinned Combeferre.

“But we cannot rest!” Enjolras said in stricken voice. “When still our country needs us! We must begin again, to plan –”

“I rather think,” said Feuilly thoughtfully, “that instead of laying low _here_ while things blow over, we ought to use this opportunity to – learn what can of our brothers outside the motherland! To see what deliverance can be wrought outside her borders! There is certainly much work to be done outside of France; Russia has serfs, America has slaves! And by now you all know the situation in Poland . . .”

“But shall we desert our poor Patria in her hour of need?” Enjolras asked. “France, our beloved, – still she suffers! Still she yearns for liberty! I could not bear to leave her now!”

“Enjolras, your mistress has _not_ been good to you!” Bossuet told him pityingly.

“And shall I love her any the less for that?” Enjolras demanded. “Shall my love be so selfish? No, the truest love is built of sacrifice – it expects no return! Let her spurn me, imprison me, let her strike me with bullets and bayonets, but I shall stay by her side! My love shall not waver!”

“You are a true knight, Enjolras,” beamed Jean Prouvaire.

“Ah, but _you_ never learned how to keep a mistress happy, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac observed. “If she rages and sulks at you, sometimes it is best to leave her alone for a while until she can think of you more fondly in your absence!”

“That’s true,” Joly agreed, “and it was a hard-learned lesson for me, but happiness with Musichetta has sometimes depended on it, and we’ve been happy now for many years!”

“Perhaps,” suggested Marius, “one ought to emulate Napoleon in this instance –”

They all stared at him.

“ _Marius_ ,” said Combeferre sharply, “you – you came to our barricade! We thought you – had learned by now –”

“Oh yes, of course!” said Marius defensively. “I am one hundred percent a Republican now! I only meant – follow his path in vanishing from the country for a few years until things blow over, and then, when they’re not thinking of you – come back in style to turn it all on its head!”

“You make a compelling point, Monsieur Lawyer!” Courfeyrac grinned. He turned back to his other friends. “Come, my friends,” he said, “let us go and take a _very_ long walk around our dear old Paris, breathe the bracing air of freedom, and discuss these things as we go! Will you indulge me, friends?”

“Of course, Courfeyrac,” smiled Enjolras. “Our Republic must have equality in the fulfillment of wishes as well! Farewell for the present, Citizen Marius, and –” he paused awkwardly for a split second, “and Citoyenne Cosette! The Republic thanks you again for your services!”

The rest waved heartily, and turned to go. Enjolras was to be seen listening silently and intently to Feuilly’s sermon on the conditions in Poland and what use men like them could be to their good. Courfeyrac lingered a moment longer to share one more embrace with Marius. It was a much nicer hug than their last, since Marius’s collarbone had healed further, and there were no more prison bars between them.

“You’re all strong enough for a long walk now?” Marius grinned. “Then you ought to be strong enough for dancing as well, I daresay!”

“Dancing!” exclaimed Courfeyrac in delight, dancing a little jig on the spot. “I daresay _some_ of us were born ready to dance, and _some_ of us could never learn in four lifetimes!”

“Well, I look forward to seeing it,” Marius grinned, “because the wedding’s in a week!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, erm - does the Lafayette thing need an explanation? Historically, Lafayette, on more than one occasion, saved people and influenced politics by hugging them, and was a speaker at Lamarque's funeral; when riots broke out, he tried in vain to calm people down and stop the fighting on both sides, but when it didn't work, he went home. He was seventy-four with one bad leg at the time and I can't blame him. I am (if you couldn't tell) a bit of an insufferable Lafayette nerd/stan/apologist; I've read two biographies of him and the one time in my life I visited Paris (when I was a far more casual Les Mis fan than I am at present) the main thing I really wanted to see was Lafayette's grave in the Picpus Cemetery (not to be confused with the Petit-Picpus Convent!) Coming to the realization that my new heroes, Les Amis, would have been in conflict with my old hero, Lafayette, made me genuinely upset. But I'll restrain myself from going too far into those issues here! It was enough for me to project on these nerds a bit in the spouting of Lafayette fun facts! XD
> 
> Speaking of THESE NERDS, I hope you enjoyed these half-comic portrayals! I'll be curious to know if you can tell who my favorites are from this, just based on amount of lines/screentime, and I apologize if you feel I didn't do YOUR favorite justice. I also feel a little bad that Cosette was somewhat sidelined in this chapter, as she's the (ostensible) Main Character here. But she'll have more to do in chapter 3, which of course will feature her wedding! Let us hope I can make this wedding happen before Shrove Tuesday! ;)
> 
> Again, please leave comments, or hit me up at my tumblr, windmilltothestars, if you want to talk - Les Mis, Lafayette, anything! Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed! :)


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